What are Trending Topics?

Trending topics on Twitter's homepage

Simply put, trending topics are what's being discussed on Twitter at a specific moment in time. When you land on Twitter's homepage, they're front and center. And when Twitter redesigned its layout a few months ago, they made sure to give trending topics premium real estate on a Twitter user's homepage.

So why are they important? Consider them like the teasers before the 6pm news - they're showing you in just a few words what's [arguably] important to the Twitterverse. Breaking news, television, sporting events, and popular cultural usually dominate trending topics, as do hashtags. Learn more about Twitter hashtags in our recent blog post...

So, is it always important to you? Probably not. But it is amazing to see news spread across Twitter faster than it can hit CNN. And, if you're really into a sports team or TV show, then maybe it is up your alley. Nevertheless, it's an interesting microcosm of what's going on in the world, one tweet at a time.

Some Nifty Trending Topic Websites

The Twitter Homepage

A news ticker with trending topics and top tweets from influential users - what's not to love?

What the Trend

A cool site that tells you what's going on by country.

Trendistic

Nothing fancy, but it does do more than most sites in terms of trending topic timelines.

TweetStats

It may not be much to look at, but that is one big tag cloud.

@trendingtopics

A Twitter user who tweets real-time trending topics along with associated news articles and Wikipedia pages.

Tags: social media | twitter